Re: [xml-dev] Retain or discard whitespace surrounding an element?

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> On 27 Dec 2021, at 12:03, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> 
> [Definition] Lexer: a tool that inputs a linear sequence of characters and assembles them into meaningful groups (tokens). A lexer is also called a scanner or a tokenizer.

In the XML world we generally call it a parser.
> 
> 
> 
> In the following XML document, what is the content of the <Document> element? 
> 
> <Document>
>    <Test>Hello, world</Test>
> </Document>
> 

Whitespace is signfiicant unless there is information (e.g. a DTD or schema) that says it isn't.

>  Is that good language design?
> 

No, it's a design mistake that causes untold extra costs and complexity in XML processing.

There are many ways it could have been avoided, for example by writing insignificant whitespace as

<Document
  <Test>Hello, world</Test>
/Document>

But we've learnt as a community that trying to improve XML doesn't work: the standard is too deeply embedded.

Michael Kay
Saxonica